


The Taste of Ash

by Anonymous



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:20:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27953780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “It’s not your time to die yet, Tommy.”He can feel it. The beat of the lava pulsing far beneath his feet. The lifeblood of the nether, white-hot and consuming. Ready to burn away what little remained of the boy if he took one more step forward.Dream’s grip on his arm is like a vice. With each breath, Tommy feels it grow a little tighter. Holding him in place.He swallows, tasting ash on his tongue. “And that’s your choice to make, is it?”
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 518
Collections: Anonymous





	The Taste of Ash

“It’s not your time to die yet, Tommy.”

He can feel it. The beat of the lava pulsing far beneath his feet. The lifeblood of the nether, white-hot and consuming. Ready to burn away what little remained of the boy if he took one more step forward.

Dream’s grip on his arm is like a vice. With each breath, Tommy feels it grow a little tighter. Holding him in place.

He swallows, tasting ash on his tongue. “And that’s your choice to make, is it?”

Dream gives him silence. The glow of his armor is a sickly afterburn as Tommy’s eyes drift and refocus on the lava below.

“Yeah.” The words feel like exhaling glass. “Reckon that’d piss you off, wouldn’t it? If you weren’t the one to take me out.”

“ _Tommy_.” Dream’s voice is devoid of any humor, which Tommy almost finds funny. Big man, big Dream laughing as he follows Tommy around the consuming emptiness of Logstedshire. Smiling as he burns away what little Tommy had managed to collect.

Well. Dream’s always smiling.

“Tommy, we’re still friends.”

It’s spoken like an order, and that _is_ enough to draw an unbidden bark of laughter. “Yeah. Seems like you need me to believe that.”

“I don’t _need_ you to believe anything. It’s the truth.”

Tommy can feel his head shake. His lungs ache with each inhale. Everything aches. Dream’s grip is like ice on his own too-hot skin. Then there’s a tug, the taller man pulling him a step farther back from the edge.

“Tommy, come.” Another order. “It’s time to go home.”

It’s not his home. It’s not his home, will never be his home, his home is twenty steps through the shimmering portal to their right. Tommy has never thought the color purple looked so beautiful as he did in this moment.

His tongue swipes across the bottom of his chapped lips. “Where’s George, Dream?”

Dream stills.

Tommy doesn’t dare look at him. He keeps his eyes trained on the liquid hellfire below as he continues: “I see you’ve got Sapnap back. Grats on that, really, but from what I’ve heard, he wasn’t the problem, was he?”

“I don’t _care_ what you think you’ve heard.”

There it is. The fire flickering beneath the ice. 

“I mean, I care.” He hears the hint of his old glibness in his voice, even with the heartbeat pounding in his ears. “We’re a lot alike, _Gogy_ and me.”

A scoff. “Okay, Tommy.”

“Nah, nah, we are. We are, Dream.” He chances a glance up at the man. It’s symbolic, really. Not like he’s expecting the man’s placid smile to change, ever. “We are, y’know why? Cause we don’t listen to you.”

He’d been half-expecting a shove. The way Dream twists his arm and yanks him back is worse, so much worse. He can feel his arm straining in his socket, gasping in pained breaths as the other man towers over him.

“George is _nothing_ like you. _George_ does what I say, which is why he’s not the one exiled.”

Tommy chokes out a wheeze that twists into a laugh. It hurts, the pressure on his back and arm fucking hurts but the fire in Dream’s words is almost soothing against the chill of the man's touch. Between the two, Tommy feels strung out and feverish all at once - which is probably why his mouth keeps moving.

“Oh,” he gasps, the smile on his face absolutely wretched. “Oh, please, Dream. You don’t need to _dress up_ the fact I don’t have the _privilege_ of your soft spot like he does, your _Gogy_. Everybody else dances so nicely to your little _tune_ , but not _Tommy and Gogy_ , not old-”

Tommy’s been shoved to the ground before. It’s more common than he’d like, a symptom of letting his mouth run. This is the first time that he’s been _thrown_ to it, he thinks. The feeling of blackstone slamming into the back of his head is enough to knock the wind from his lungs.

For a moment, the corners of his vision flash white and spotty. Then he blinks, and Dream’s figure looms large above him.

Tommy shuts his eyes.

“Get up.” The fire is gone. Icy fingers grab at his collar. “I’m taking you home. I'm not here for your little _tantrum_ , Tommy.”

Tommy chokes on something that might have been a laugh, might have been a sob. The sound lies mangled and bloodied in his throat as he reaches up to grip at his temple. “I could do it.”

“You’re not going to do it, Tommy.”

“Oh, I could.” Tommy breathes in smoke and exhales ash. “You just don’t want me to.”

A noise of frustration, the familiar sound of annoyance. So, so familiar. _Annoying_ is etched into him deeper than his own name. “Of course I don’t _want_ you to. Killing yourself isn’t going to solve anything, Tommy.”

“It would solve _everything_.” The words send a tingle as the pass his lips. His heart is a drumbeat in his chest, and a shrill little giggle bubbles out even as those icy fingers tighten their grip. “ _Ohhhh_ , you’d hate it so much, Dream.”

“Tommy, ** _enough_**.”

“Tommy ghost. Ghostommy!” He’s knows this feeling, this unstoppable babbling sensation – the one that Tubbo always said would _get him killed_ someday. “Oh God, you’d hate it Dream, you’d _hate_ me as a ghost. Can’t pull on your little strings, can’t threaten to kill me because oops, beat you to it! Can’t hold others responsible for what I do! Can’t keep me from going back and oh, what I’d tell them, how they’d _hate_ you. What you did to me, how you _broke_ me. Wouldn’t even be a body to mourn, all burned up! And Big Man Dream left without one of his silly little toys for his silly little games, God, you’d **_hate_** it-”

“ ** _ENOUGH!!_** ”

The Nether trembles. Or perhaps that’s just his own body, ringing with the echoes of Dream’s scream. He doesn’t know. He still hasn’t opened his eyes.

You can’t cry in the Nether. Not really. The heat saps the moisture too quickly, a stinging sensation left as if meant to punish.

It hurts. A lot.

Maybe it’s the aches in his own body, but as some point, Tommy’s gone limp. He knows this because he feels how easily Dream manhandles him up. He’s slung over the man’s back, arms pulled over Dream’s shoulders and laced weakly around his neck.

Techno had used to carry him like this, once. Him, and Tubbo. Phil had called it a piggy-back ride. He hadn’t understood the joke at the time, but Wilbur had.

There’s usually a clench in his heart when he thinks of them. When he thinks of the moments in his life when they’d been far away, and he’d been left waiting for them to come home. The hurt had been soothing, in a way, with just how strongly it had gripped him.

It’s nothing but a dull ache now.

Perhaps it’s the heat that’s swiftly lulling him towards unconsciousness, or fatigue from the strength of his outburst. Or maybe just the cold silence Dream lets hang in the molten air as he carries Tommy on his back.

With a trembled exhale, Tommy lets the relief of nothingness wash over him.

\---

When Tommy opens his eyes again, he’s flat on his back in a bed and staring up at a dirt ceiling. The sound of rainfall pattering overhead fills his ears, broken only by a small noise of exclamation.

“Oh! Tommy, you’re awake!”

Tommy drags his tired gaze down from the roof to the splotch of yellow and grey hovering at his side, slowly focusing into view.

After a moment, he offers a quiet: “Hey, Wilbur.”

The ghost beams down at him like he’s expecting a smile in return. When nothing happens, he continues: “It’s raining, Tommy! You know, I quite like the rain.”

“I don’t.” Tommy pushes the covers off himself, slowly swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He feels like he hadn’t slept at all with how sluggishly his limbs are moving. There’s a headache building in his temples, and his lungs still feel thick with smoke.

“Do you remember?” Wilbur asks, floating around to his other side. “Do you remember the first rain, Tommy?”

“What?” Tommy reaches up to pinch between his eyes, squeezing them shut. “Wilbur, you’re not making sense again.”

“When we first came, there was rain.” Wilbur’s voice is chipper, unphased by Tommy turning away from him to shuck on his boots. “Do you remember? Dream brought us here, and it was raining. And now Dream’s brought you back again, and it’s raining. Isn’t that funny, Tommy?”

“No.” Tommy gets to his feet, bracing one hand against the dirt wall as he does. It gives slightly beneath his weight, because it’s shit. It’s ugly and loose. Nothing like smooth, solid stone. Nothing like home.

“Tommy, are you going out?” Wilbur’s floated closer, a curious tilt to his head. “It’s raining.”

“I don’t care.”

“But Tommy-”

“ ** _Shut up_** , Wilbur.” Tommy doesn’t have the energy to muster up a real shout, but somehow his tone is enough to silence the room. “I hate how you say my name. Stop it.”

Wilbur’s mouth opens, then closes. His stare drops down to Tommy’s boots, then back up again. “It’s raining. You’ll catch a cold.”

“I don’t care.” Tommy shoves open the door to their shack. A clouded night sky greets him with a rush of wet, freezing air that crawls along his skin and leaves goosebumps in its wake. The rain is a practical deluge, and the bit of Tommy that hates discomfort tells him that a single minute beneath it will leave him chilled to the bone for hours.

Tommy steps out, slamming the door behind him. His boots sinks in the mud with each step, and the rain quickly plasters his hair to his forehead. It’s only been a few seconds and he can already feel his body beginning to shiver from the sensations.

He keeps walking.

“I don’t think you should be out here.”

Tommy doesn’t bother to look back. Closed doors mean nothing to ghosts. He didn’t know why he’d bothered.

“There’s all sorts of nasty things out here at night. And you’re going to get sick.”

“So?” Tommy’s heels since a little too deep into the mud; as he struggles to pull his leg up, Wilbur floats directly in front of him.

“Well, I’m supposed to look after you. And it looks like this is a bad thing to do.”

“And who told you to do that?” Tommy bites back. With a slick _pop_ his boot is freed, and he stumbles onwards past Wilbur and towards the beach. “Dream tell you to keep an eye on me?”

“Yes.” The reply comes with no shame. Tommy might respect it if it was anyone else. “But,” Wilbur continues, “you asked me to as well. Do you remember?”

He does. The ache in his chest twinges for just a moment before the dullness settles back in. Tommy keeps his gaze on the water, steps slowing as dirt gives way to sand.

Tommy’s never really looked at an ocean at night before. Not without torches or a sword in his grip, and the paranoia that comes from the desire to live. It’s a strange feeling to just stand and watch without the occasional glance at his surroundings.

Now that he has time to look, it really is rather pretty in the moonlight.

“I know you’ve asked me not to say your name,” Wilbur remarks, floating over to stand at his side. “But I really would like to. It feels like something I’d do right now.”

“Wilbur, do you like being a ghost?”

It earns him a tilt of Wilbur’s head in question, and Tommy turns his gaze to look at him. Really look at him. In the darkness, the shade is hard to make out. Just bits of grey that blend into the darkness, broken only by the dim yellow of a sweater that Tommy remembers resting against on a warm summer afternoon, wrapped in his brother’s arms and soothed to sleep through song.

“I’m not sure.” Wilbur’s reply is curious. There’s no guilt, no trepidation. “I don’t remember much of what it was like to be not dead. It’s a bit hard to compare.”

“Do you remember-” The words stick in his sandpaper throat. “Do you remember feeling like you wanted to die, when you were alive?”

Wilbur’s form shivers. It’s an odd thing, seeing someone ripple like water before coming together again. Then there’s a series of blinks, an instinct that appears not lost even in death. “Well,” Wilbur finally says. “That doesn’t seem like a happy memory. So, if I did, I don’t think I’d remember it.”

Tommy lowers his gaze to toe at a pebble in the sand. He catches the edge with his boot and kicks, sending it sailing through the rain-drenched air before it disappears into the blackened waters.

It’d be easy to go after it. To wade deeper and deeper into the water until every trace of _Tommy_ and _Annoying_ and **_Selfish_** are pulled beneath the waves.

“Do you want me to try and remember? I can try to be Alivebur, if you want.”

Tommy lowers himself down onto the sand, pulling his knees to his chest and tucking his chin over them. It’s a small consolation. The rain had soaked through his clothes minutes ago; there’s little warmth to be had.

Wilbur floats over to settle in the sand beside him. “Do you want that?”

“Ghosts are lucky, you know.” Tommy blinks through the rivulets of water streaming down his face that pool to drip at his chin. “You only remember nice things. Not your mistakes. Not who you hurt.”

There’s the sensation of a hand being placed on his shoulder. It feels like ice.

It feels like Dream’s.

“Do you want to be a ghost, Tommy?”

Wilbur’s looking at him. Tommy can feel the man’s gaze, even if he won’t turn to meet it. His confession is exhaled with the barest of breath.

“Seems a lot better than being alive.”

The heartbeat in his head is back. The thrumming, awful feeling of vertigo even as his hands clench in the sand. The chill gripping his skin, his lungs.

“I don’t think you should be a ghost.” Wilbur’s tone is just – thoughtful. Not horrified, not shocked, not pleading. Not angry and screaming as if about to throw Tommy against a blackened floor. “I think a lot of people would be sad if you died.”

The images come unbidden in his mind. Wilbur, eyes crazed and smile wild in the dim lighting of Pogtopia. Techno, spattered with blood and enshrined in a halo of smoke atop the rubble of his once-home. Philza, his head tipped back in laughter as he claps a friendly hand on the shoulder of his favorite, traitorous son.

Tubbo, staring coldly down at him from the obsidian shadows that had choked him with disbelief.

After a long moment, Tommy lets his eyes slip shut. “I don’t think so.”

“I think I might be sad,” Wilbur remarks, unphased. “If you were a ghost. I’m not sure, but I don’t think this is a good thing to want, to not be alive. So I think I would be sad.”

“You don’t count,” Tommy replies tonelessly. “Anything sad, you just forget.”

“Well…” Wilbur’s hand drops off Tommy’s shoulder, but the frost from his touch lingers. “I’ll go find someone. Someone alive, who will remember, and I’ll see if they would be sad.”

Tommy huffs what might have once been a laugh, in another time. “Wilbur, you can’t just-”

A rush of wind sings through his ears and ruffles his matted hair. It’s enough to open Tommy’s eyes momentarily, gaze lifting up from his knees and over to where Wilbur had just been.

An empty sprawl of beach greets him.

Tommy’s eyes shut again. He breathes chilled night air into his lungs and feels shards of ice scrape inside his veins.

He misses the taste of ash.


End file.
